2015/01/01 by Gergely Endrődi, Endrodi, Gergely · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1504.08280
openalex publication_date 2015/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Lattice simulations have demonstrated that a background (electro)magnetic field reduces the chiral/deconfinement transition temperature of quantum chromodynamics for eB < 1 GeV2. On the level of observables, this reduction manifests itself in an enhancement of the Polyakov loop and in a suppression of the light quark condensates (inverse magnetic catalysis) in the transition region. In this paper, we report on lattice simulations of 1+1+1-flavor QCD at an unprecedentedly high value of the magnetic field eB = 3.25 GeV2. Based on the behavior of various observables, it is shown that even at this extremely strong field, inverse magnetic catalysis prevails and the transition, albeit becoming sharper, remains an analytic crossover. In addition, we develop an algorithm to directly simulate the asymptotically strong magnetic field limit of QCD. We find strong evidence for a first-order deconfinement phase transition in this limiting theory, implying the presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram. Based on the available lattice data, we estimate the location of the critical point.